How to see the Lyrid meteor shower from the Interior

You can catch a meteor shower by looking up at the night sky before dawn this week in the Southern Interior.

The Lyrid meteor shower is happening until Wednesday, Apr. 25.

According to the almanac.com the best day to see the meteors will be Sunday, Apr. 22 before dawn. For the Southern Interior that means the hours between approximately 2:30 a.m. and 5:50 a.m., of course weather permitting.

You don’t need a telescope, just look up towards the constellation Lyria to the northeast of the star Vega.

Lyrid showers are of medium brightness and are some of the oldest recorded meteor showers dating back to 687 B.C., space.com reports.

This year the Lyrid meteor shower is expected to produce 18 meteors per hour. Other years it can produce 15 to 20, and on rare occasions 100 meteors per hour.

Lyrid meteors come from the trail of Comet Thatcher which orbits the sun about once every 415 years. The “shooting stars” are actually little bits of debris left in the comet’s wake.

We see meteor showers when the Earth passes through the path of a comet, which is why they happen around the same time every year at about the same point in the sky.

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